Modern Age: A Quarterly Review,
Intercollegiate Studies Institute
Vol. 37, No. 4

—Testimonies of Gratitude—

Thank You, Tommy
John Attarian

And, as Richard M. Weaver saw, "character is often an obstruction to the wheels of economic progress."⁶ Devotion, spiritual and ethical discipline, mortification, fidelity to standards, and a willingness to endure for their sake peril, struggle or suffering of any kind, all of which heroism presupposes, are utterly incompatible with the lust for comforts and good times so central—and essential—to a consumer economy. "Industrial civilization," Huxley observed, "is only possible when there's no self-denial. Self-indulgence up to the very limits imposed by hygiene and economics. Otherwise the wheels stop turning. "⁷ To keep the wheels turning, people must be gelded into "consumers" and jobholders, and never mind their souls.

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6. Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences (Chicago, 1948), 64.

7. Aldous Huxley, Brave New World London, 1932), Ch. 17